


The Old Ones

by roman_numeral



Series: The Old Ones [1]
Category: The Old Guard (2020 Movie)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Femslash, M/M, Past Lives, Past Relationship(s), Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:22:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 20,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25198429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roman_numeral/pseuds/roman_numeral
Summary: They want to know who they are, why they're the way they are. What their purpose is. The truth might be worse than not knowing, but the past refuses to stay buried.  And the truth challenges the love between Joe and Nicky.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova/OMC
Series: The Old Ones [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871323
Comments: 79
Kudos: 298





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched the movie and I loved it. Is it a perfect movie? No, but I loved it enough to contribute to the fandom. 
> 
> What I especially loved was the love between Joe and Nicky and I wanted to explore what would happen if it were challenged. 
> 
> Two warnings. One, I haven't read the comics and don't plan to. Two, I have no beta so this most likely has some errors. If you point them out in the comments I'll do my best to fix them. 
> 
> Lastly, I hope you enjoy this fic, if you do please leave a like :)

  
  


It doesn’t take long for Copley to suggest working for the American government. “It’ll give you more technology, more information of the happenings of the world,” he says.

Andy is quick to shoot him down.

But Copley is persistent. “You’ll choose your missions. You’ll choose who you get to work with. You get to make all the choices. No one will make you do what you don’t want.”

Andy walks away before he can continue.

“How long do you think this will last? Mhh? There are videos of you and your army all over the internet. People will come hunting for you. And I’m not talking about another pharma lunatic, or some tech giant. I’m talking about literal government armies. If you join the CIA you will have the full support and protection of the agency, of the entire U.S government.”

Andy discusses it with her people.

“There’s some truth in what he’s saying,” Nile says over a cold one.

Andy looks at the boys.

Joe takes a hold of Nicky’s hand. “As long as we’re all together we’ll be alright. Whatever you choose boss, we’re with you.”

Andy doesn’t fear for herself. She’s too old for that. She fears for Nile and Joe and Nicky. She fears for their futures. She knows it’s only a matter of time before a contact betrays them again, before they’re handed over to some rich asshole or a government who will use them or their DNA for some horrible purpose.

She knows she can’t trust the CIA or any agency. But maybe they can survive a little bit longer in relative peace working with them.

“We make all the decisions.” She tells Copley. “We take the jobs we feel are best suited for us.”

Copley claps and smiles. “They’ll say yes to everything, I’m sure.”

“Copley…”

“I’ll give them a call. They’ll be here by tomorrow. You can tell them your demands then.”

“No weapons.”

“No weapons.”

They meet Alex Hunter exactly 24 hours later.

He’s alone and in a black suit, not a weapon on him.

Andy thinks he’s very brave, or the man is extremely dangerous and trying not to seem so.

Andy lays out all her demands, the man agrees to everything.

“We’ll set you up in a house close to-”

“We’ll chose where we live.” Nile says.

“Wouldn’t want to find any hidden cameras later on,” Nicky adds.

Alex agrees to that too.

They find a mansion 4 miles away from CIA headquarters. It’s three stories high. The first floor is for Nile, the second for Nicky and Joe, and the third for Andy. It has a great garden in the front with bright flowers and several trees. In the back there’s a large pool for them all to enjoy.

The second order of business is choosing a team. Alex presents them with dozens of profiles of soldiers from every branch. People who have seen combat and have come out on top. They’re all rejected.

“Show us files from those who have been discharged.” Joe says.

As always, Alex complies.

From there, they chose a young man named Kyle Sanders who was discharged for being gay. They find Chelsea Charm, discharged for disobeying orders and saving a dozen orphans. Lesli Striker, excellent in technology but discharged because of a limp that didn’t heal. Taylor, Nubia, Francesca, Peter, and Santiago, all of them discharged for having ethics that were unsuitable for the army.

They train them with swords and hand to hand combat. And soon enough they’re more than just a team.

Andy chooses the missions they go on. It’s always rescues. They refuse to go full force against others, Andy knows governments rarely tell the entire truth, if ever.

For two years it works out. They rescue and they save with minimal casualties.

After work they each enjoy their life. Joe and Nicky, as always, are wrapped around each other. In their free time, Nicky cooks and Joe does woodwork, slowly replacing factory bought furniture with his own work. They could be the last two people in the world, and they wouldn’t even notice.

Nile visits her family from time to time. Mostly during the holidays, but already she knows what Booker meant about the jealousy in their eyes, the distrust that she knows will turn to anger in a decade or two, when they begin to feel their age weighing down on them while she remains young. She visits them less and less over time. She doesn’t want her good memories of her family to be jaded later on in life. Most of the time she volunteers in youth groups, trying to help those at risk of falling in with the wrong crowd or give encouragement to those who are trying to better themselves.

Andy spends more and more of her time trying to figure out who she is, what her and Nile and the boys are. Why they are the way they are. She looks at history books, gets the CIA to translate old parchment papers with mostly dead languages on them, she even picks up the Christian bible, but she finds nothing. It frustrates her to no end. 6,000 thousand years old and she has no idea who or what she is, and she’s running out of time.

#

For two years they fall into a routine with the CIA and their own personal lives. For two years they have normalcy.

And then Nile has a dream. She wakes up screaming and thrashing in her bed.

Nicky, Joe, and then Andy run into her room.

“It was a dream, it’s just a dream,” Nile repeats to herself over and over again.

“What was it?” Nicky asks, his pale green eyes full of compassion and concern.

“I… It was Quynh,” she says. “She… she was burning people. She was killing them, children included.”

“No, that’s impossible.” Andy says. “Quynh never hurt children. It was just a nightmare. A really strange nightmare.”

“Booker was there.” Nile confesses. “He was trying to stop her. But she wouldn’t listen.”

Joe and Nicky turn to Andy. “Quynh is stuck at the bottom of the ocean, somewhere I can’t find her. It was just a nightmare.”

They don’t speak of it again.

Nile convinces herself that it was just a weird fucked up nightmare. After all she’s dreamt of Quynh stuck at the bottom of the ocean before, and she does miss Booker, her mind somehow decided to have a nightmare about the two of them.

A week later she has another nightmare. She wakes up screaming again, and again they barge into her room.

“You’re gonna give us a heart attack,” Joe says when he sees she’s fine.

“It’s not just a nightmare,” Nile says, “it’s not.” She brings up her arm, her burnt arm that heals before their eyes. “She used fire again. She was killing innocent people again.”

Andy doesn’t know what to say, what to think. Nile’s dreams made no sense. Quynh was a warrior for the defenseless, for the innocent. She would never harm anyone, let alone set them on fire.

The next day she questions Alex on the search for Quynh that had started when they agreed to join the CIA.

“The ocean is still a mystery,” he says as an apology. “The second we find anything you’ll be the first to know.”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

  


Joe loves Nicky, and he knows Nicky loves him. 900 years together and he can’t imagine immortality without him.

When he stops and thinks about life without Nicky, he understands Booker. He understands wanting to end it. But it was for Nicky that he pushed for the harsh punishment of excommunication for a hundred years. Nile was willing to forgive with an apology and Nicky had pushed for far less time, but not Joe. After all Booker had put Nicky in danger; and that, he couldn’t forgive.

He walks over from the balcony to the bed and wraps himself around Nicky. He breathes in the smell of his shampoo and falls asleep.

He dreams. This isn’t his dream he recognizes that immediately. It’s Nicky’s dream. He doesn’t know how it works, doesn’t know why, but once in a while they share dreams that have nothing to do with finding other immortals. When it first happened, long ago, they tried to recreate it, to will themselves into the other’s dream. But they were always unsuccessful. They don’t know how it works, there’s so much they don’t know about themselves. At times it’s frustrating to have lived so long and know so little about themselves.

Joe doesn’t recognize the setting for the dream. The walls are light brown and gold, the area open and airy, and made of stone. They’re in a bedroom lit up by torches, the bed is overly large with pristine white linen.

Nicky is at the edge of the bed, dressed in white robs and heavy jewelry on his neck and wrists.

Joe gives the room another glance, there are hieroglyphs on the walls, the clothes Nicky wears are Egyptian in style. It confuses him. Nicky was born in Italy, in the 11th century.

Joe turns back to Nicky when he starts speaking to another person. He speaks in a language Joe doesn’t understand. The other man comes out of the shadows. He’s a tall man, muscular, with dark brown hair and sharp blue eyes. He’s dressed in short blue robes with blue jewelry on his chest and arms. He pounces on Nicky and Nicky laughs. They kiss passionately, hungry for each other.

Joe wants to fling the unknown man off of Nicky, but he can’t move, he’s frozen, rooted on the spot. He watches as Nicky and this stranger make love. He wants to wake up, he doesn’t want to see this. Why is Nicky dreaming this? What does it mean? He can’t move so he screams his frustration. Nicky’s pale green eyes turn to him and Joe wakes up.

Nicky wakes up at the same time and immediately turns to look at Joe. “Oh my god,” he gasps and runs to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Joe takes a couple of breaths to calm himself. The dream felt too real. Watching Nicky with another man felt too real. Joe shakes his head. 900 years together, not once had either been unfaithful to the other. Not once.

Joe knows Nicky left behind a family. A wife, a son, and daughter. From time to time he checks up on his descendants, happy to see them prosper from afar. Joe himself had left a childless wife when he went to war. After finding Nicky there had been no one else, man or woman.

“It’s just a dream,” he says to himself. But he doesn’t believe it, it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt entirely too real. And Nicky’s reaction. It had felt real to him too.

Nicky gets out of the bathroom an hour later, a white towel wrapped around his waist. He ignores Joe and dresses in soft grey sweat and a plain white shirt.

“Wanna talk about it?” Joe finally asks.

“Not really.”

“I feel like we should.”

“It was a dream, Joe. A stupid dream.”

“It didn’t feel-“

“I’ll sleep on the couch.” He turns toward the door.

“No,” Joe quickly says. “It was just a dream. Come.”

They settle on the bed. Joe wraps his arms around Nicky. Nicky turns around and instead lays his head on Joe’s chest. “It was only a dream,” he says in a low voice.

Joe isn’t sure who’s he’s trying to convince.

They wake up late the next day but feeling slightly better than when they went to sleep.

“Come on,” Nicky says. “I’ll make you some crepes with that jam you like.”

Joe knows he’s trying to forget about last night, god knows he’s trying to forget it too. He gives the man he loves with all his heart a smile. “Throw in some tea and I’m in.”

“Well, that’s just a given,” Nicky smiles back.

They make their way downstairs to the kitchen area. They’re not surprised to see Andy and Nile there already, usually Nicky makes breakfast for everyone if they’re there. And no one likes to pass up food made by him.

But today’s different. It’s easy to notice the tension in Andy’s shoulders and the way Nile avoids looking at them.

“Boss? Something happen?” Joe asks.

“I’m not sure,” Andy says.

“What’s going on?”

“We saw that dream of yours last night.” Andy confesses.

Nicky’s eyes go wide, he resists the urge to run and hide. “How much did you see?”

Andy looks at Nicky and then Joe. “Everything.”

It takes a while for Nicky to find his voice. “I don’t know what to say except, I’m sorry.”

“I think we need to talk about it.”

“Talk about it? It was just a stupid dream, and if anything, it’s between me and Joe.”

“Normally I would agree, the dream made no sense at all. But you’re not the only one experiencing strange dreams at the moment, and I don’t think we should keep ignoring them.”

“What could my dream have anything to do with Quynh? Nothing. It was just a stupid dream!”

“It wasn’t though.” Andy insists. “It felt too real and you know it otherwise you wouldn’t be so defensive. We only share dreams when it’s another immortal. Nile dreaming about Quynh, she’s an immortal. You dreaming about this other man, he must be an immortal.”

Joe and Nicky sit down. Nicky can’t help but notice that Nile still wont look at him. “This dream was in the past,” Nicky says. “Way in the past, a time before I was born. So, it makes absolutely no sense.”

Andy takes a deep breath. “I’m about to say something that might make you hate me and bring more questions than answers about what we are.” Three pairs of eyes looked at her in confusion. Nicky and Joe personally couldn’t imagine themselves ever hating Andy, not when they’ve known her for so long. “I thought he was confused at first, we live so long, sometimes we forget things.”

“Andy, what is it?” Joe pushes.

“Lykon, sometimes he would say things that didn’t make sense. He would talk about a life before civilization. He would say this wasn’t his first life. That it was his second life as an immortal.”

Nile and Joe stare at her in shock, beside him Nicky turns green.

“Reincarnation,” Nile bursts out. “You’re talking about reincarnation?!”

“That’s impossible,” Joe says. “You said yourself, we forget things, he was obviously very confused.”

“That’s what I thought too, but he said things that I would later find out to be true.”

“Like what?” Nile challenges.

“He would speak about tribes and civilizations that wouldn’t be uncovered by archeologist until thousands of years later. He would talk about Egypt, describe palace life, but he was born after the Egyptian kingdom fell, so it made no sense. Unless he was reincarnated.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Nile looks angry.

“Because it is a heavy thing to think about.”

“That’s an understatement.” Nicky mumbles.

Joe wants to reach over and take Nicky into his arms, but Nicky’s closed off, arms crossed and leaning away from him. “Is that what you think this is? Nicky remembering some past life?”

“I think it’s a possibility.”

“But why? Why would I dream about- of this?”

Andy gives a small shrug. “We always dream of new immortals, we dream of each other so we can find each other. Maybe this is an old one reaching out.”

“You’re saying he’s still alive. And he decided to make contact with _that_ dream.” Joe’s mouth twists in contempt.

Nicky shakes his head. Reincarnation, a possible old lover from some past live that he didn’t know he had up until eight hours ago. This was too much. “I need some air.” He leaves the group to go outside.

Nile also gets up. Possible reincarnation is a hard pill to swallow for someone who doesn’t even like being an immortal. She goes out the front door, not wanting to crowd Nicky who she’s sure is having a harder time than her.

Across the table Andy looks at Joe with compassion in her eyes. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear. I know this is hard, but I don’t want us to be woefully unprepared just incase something does show up. Joe, I have a bad feeling. For a whole month, ever since Nile started having dreams about Quynh, there’s been a dread over me. If Quynh somehow escaped, if she’s really out of the ocean… Joe, she was tortured for 500 years. There’s no way she hasn’t gone insane. I fear something bad is about to happen.”

  



	3. Chapter 3

  


Joe opens his sketch pad to a fresh piece of paper and starts drawing. He draws a man with an angular face, a straight nose, almond shaped eyes, and a wide mouth. On the side he makes notes. Eyes: blue. Height, he stops and thinks about it. He was slightly taller than Nicky. Height 6’1” to 6’4”. Age? In the dream, he looked like he was anywhere from 25-35.

When he’s done he hands the paper over to Andy.

Andy doesn’t waste time and on her day off she heads to the CIA to speak to Alex.

“I need you to find this man.” She hands over the sketch.

Ales looks at it. “Who is he?”

“An immortal.”

“Another new one?”

“Not exactly.” Alex raises an eyebrow and waits for an explanation. “The four of us experienced a dream about him, but we don’t think he’s a new immortal. We have no idea if he’s friend of foe, so we want to be prepared for when he shows up. Can you find him?”

Alex nods. “If he’s been anywhere near a camera, we’ll find him. Does he have a name?”

“No. And Quynh-“

“We still haven’t found anything.”

“No, you should stop looking in the ocean and look for her out of it. We think she’s out in the world.”

“And why is that? Another dream?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened in the dream?”

“Just find them.”

From the patio, Joe sips on cold tea as he watched Nicky swim lap after lap after lap. He’s been at it for three hours and Joe wishes he would stop. Unable to take it anymore he walks over to the edge of the pool. Nicky ignores him and continues pummeling his exhausted body.

“Nicky,” Joe calls out. “Nicky please, love,” He says in Italian. Nicky stops swimming. “This isn’t helping. Please, lets talk.”

Nicky leaves the pool and wraps himself in an overly large beach towel. The pair sit under a shaded area.

Joe isn’t sure on how to start the conversation. He decides to start with what he is sure of. “I love you,” he says. “I know the dream has unsettled you. But I love you no matter what.”

Wounded pale eyes turn to him. “You’re the love of my life, I’ve always said that. I still feel that. I love you, Yusuf. But now I feel like I’ve betrayed you. I feel so disgusted with myself.”

Joe shakes his head. “If what Andy said is true, if we are capable of reincarnation, then what you dreamt was another life, a long-ago life that means nothing now. You and I, we’ve been together for 900 years. We’re not going to throw that away because of some distant past life that you don’t even remember.”

“So, you don’t hate me?”

“No!” Joe says vehemently. He grabs ahold of Nicky’s shoulders “I could never hate you, not ever, do you understand! You are everything to me. I would rather die, than see any harm come to you at all.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth. Nicky, I love you. I love you with all my heart and all my being.”

“And I love you with all my being. I would be so lost without you.”

They share a kiss that quickly turns to more. Knowing they’re alone in the house they continue their activities by the pool.

Unbeknown to them, a well-hidden camera captures their lovemaking.

#

Alex enters the heavily guarded penthouse with ease. The guards know who he is, they know he works for their boss. He waits for the man to acknowledge him.

The tall blond man closes the laptop and turns his blue eyes to him.

“They want me looking for you.” Alex says. “They gave me this,” he hands over Joe’s sketch.

Blue eyes go over the sketch, it’s a very good sketch, in fact it’s perfect. Ra burns it with a thought.

“What should I do?”

“Look for me.”

“Should I find you?”

“No. You’ll only have to play dumb for a little while longer. Quynh is almost here. Just one more week and I’ll make my presence known. Don’t send them on anymore missions, not until I give you the word. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to Nicky, before I see him again after such a long time.”

“Yes, master.”

Ra opens the laptop again. The pair is done with their lovemaking. They lay on the towel on the grass, reminiscing on their past.

Ra hates this man. This Yusuf who’s spent the past 900 years with his Nicky. He’s going to kill this man, kill him and take back everything that was stolen from him: Nicky, his kingdom, and his status as a god.

_We’ve been together for 900 years. We’re not going to throw that away because of some distant past life that you don’t even remember._

Ra scoffs at those stupid words. 900 years. What was 900 years in comparison to 7,000 years. He and Nicky had explored the entire world together, they built a kingdom that lasted 3,000 years, they were once worshipped as gods. This man, this Yusuf was nothing in comparison to Ra.

Soon he would remind Nicky of who he really was and of who he belonged with.

  



	4. Chapter 4

  


Booker wishes he could find the will to leave. Wishes he could just get up and walk away. The fact is he can’t even get up, not when she’s used the voice. She doesn’t do it often, most of the times she just handcuffs him to keep him compliant. But she can’t do that now, not in a crowded airport with security at every corner.

So to keep him from running away, to keep him from screaming for help, she’s used the voice. She looked him right in the eyes and said, ‘Don’t draw any attention to yourself, you wont try to escape, you wont shout for help, you will get up when I get up, walk when I walk and sit when I sit.’ He’s learned over the year of his imprisonment that she doesn’t use the voice often because it gives her horrible headaches and nosebleeds. A worrying thing for an immortal.

“It’s time,” Quynh says. She gets up and Booker follows. They board a crowded plane, it’s noisy and not for the first time Booker wishes she’d used a private plane. She has the money for it, or at least the man she works for does. But he’s also learned that she’s trying to keep a low profile, and private planes are anything but.

“Go to sleep,” it’s not a command, just a suggestion. As much as Booker wishes to go against everything she says, he decides to listen to her. He blocks out all the noise with his headphones to close his eyes, soon enough he does go to sleep.

Nine hours later they land in Virginia. This time they have a vehicle waiting for them. They enter the limo.

Quynh looks at him. “You’re free,” she says. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she adds.

Booker feels the power she has over him lift away; his shoulders relax, and he feels like he can breathe easily again. Quynh, herself looks more relaxed and like she doesn’t have to take a shit anymore.

Quynh grabs a water from the integrated cooler and passes one to Booker.

An hour later and the limo stops in front of a tall building.

They take the elevator all the way up to the highest floor. On the other side of the elevator door there are 6 guards with high powered rifles.

Quynh walks the hallway as if she owns the place.

The penthouse is large, airy, with high ceilings. The walls are decorated with artwork depicting Egypt. There’re stone cats and broken columns with hieroglyphs on them. 

“Do you have it?” Ra walks out from the shadows, he’s barefoot and wears no shirt, only a pair of light white pants.

Quynh hands him her bag.

Carefully Ra unpacks each ingredient. Black powder from a pit in Egypt, water from the Dead Sea, venom from a white snake long thought extinct, but apparently Ra knows where the last bunch. A bone from a grave with no marker. Blood of a black sheep, and dust from a hill in Jerusalem.

These ingredients were going to make the cure for Andy.

Ra locks himself in a room retrofitted to be fit for a scientist. There he extracts from each ingredient exactly what he needs. It takes three days and a lot of precision to make exactly one dose against mortality.

In truth, Ra himself is not concerned for Andromache, he couldn’t care less if she lived or died. But he knew Nicky cared for her, Andy meant a lot to him. And Nicky meant the world to Ra. One of the things that had ripped them apart so long ago was Ra’s callousness toward human life. Well this would show Nicky he’d changed. This would be a good restart to their relationship. And if it didn’t work, if Nicky still saw him as power hungry and vain, well he would use the cure against them, offer it only if Nicky went with him. One way or another he would win. There’s no question of that.

Later that day, Ra calls Alex. “Send them to Egypt,” he commands. “To that place where the children are kept.”

He hangs up without waiting for a reply.

On his laptop he watches Nicky and the newly reincarnated Nile play chess together. Nicky is beating her of course. But he’s being instructive as he does so. Patiently he explains to her how each piece has a role, how each can be moved to fulfill that role and how each move can be countered.

Ra smiles, it was time to start playing.


	5. Chapter 5

  


It doesn’t feel different than any other mission they’ve been on. Not in the beginning at least. But the closer they get to Egypt, the more unsettled Nicky feels. He grabs a hold of Joe’s hand when the helicopter lands miles outside the city.

“We’ll be here in forty-eight hours, unless you comm otherwise,” Peter says.

“Affirmative.” Andy yells back over the noise of the blades.

With them is Nubia, Taylor, and Chelsea to help them do recon in such a large city. Alex had given them a three-mile radius of where the hostages might be held. 

They split up, a group of seven attracts too much attention. Andy pairs with Chelsea, Nile with Nubia, and Taylor with Nicky and Joe. Each one enters the radius from a different position. They make sure to act like tourists while gathering information. They take pictures of the faraway pyramids while also taking pictures of potentially interesting buildings.

At night they meet at a hotel where only two check in and the rest climb the walls to get in.

Joe, Nicky, and Taylor are the last to climb through the window.

“Anything?” Andy asks.

Joe shakes his head.

“Is it me or does this seem like a wild goose chase,” Taylor voices what some of them had already begun to think. “I mean three-mile radius? No aircraft to help us locate any hotspots? The hostages are supposed to be high profile, but we haven’t heard anything on the news, there’s been no ransom. It’s just all very odd.”

“The government is trying to keep it out of the media,” Chelsea says.

“Yeah, well maybe they shouldn’t, cus we’re operating in the dark here.”

Andy glanced at Nicky who’s been quiet the entire time. “Let’s get some rest,” she says. “Tomorrow we’ll get some breakfast and think more clearly.”

The women take the two twin beds while the men take the floor. As always Joe wraps his arms around Nicky.

_Danger, you need to leave. It’s dangerous here._

“The hostages. We can’t leave without them.”

_If I get you the hostages will you leave?_

“Yes.”

_Then tomorrow in the morning, be on the west side of the market. I’ll leave the hostages there._

“Wait, who are you?”

_My name is Ra._

“Ra.”

“Nicky, Nicky, hey.” A disoriented and sleepy Nicky turns to Joe. “You were mumbling in your sleep.”

“Oh sorry,” he says before burying his face on the crock of Joe’s neck and going back to sleep.

Morning comes, and Nicky remembers his strange dream as he’s brushing his teeth. Was it a dream? Or something more?

He tells Joe he wants to go to the market.

“What, now?”

“Yeah, I want to see what kind of spices they have to use back home.”

The request itself is strange, to go leisurely shopping while on a job, but Joe goes along with it. Maybe Nicky just wanted to get away from everyone for a bit.

“We’ll be back in an hour,” he tells Andy. Andy just nods, thinking the two love birds just want some alone time.

In the market Nicky doesn’t look at any of the stands, instead he stares at people with those big eyes of his in a very conspicuous manner.

“Alright are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Joe finally asks when the third stall of spices is ignored.

“He said they’d be here in the morning.”

Immediately, Joe is on high alert. “Who’s he?” he asks carefully.

“This is going to sound very strange but there was a voice last night. He told me the hostages would be here.”

Joe grabs Nicky’s chin and forces him to concentrate on him. “Nicky, what voice?”

“A voice in my head. He said it was dangerous and he wanted me to leave, but I said I wouldn’t without the hostages.”

“Nicky! He could be the danger. This could all be a trap!”

Nicky knows Joe has a good point, that there was no reason for them to trust some disembodied voice, but Nicky felt otherwise. “No, I don’t think so. He was being kind.”

“Well a person who’s trying to kill you isn’t going to make it obvious, is he? We need to leave,” he grabs a hold of his shoulder and start walking back the way they came from. But Nicky breaks free.

“I can’t go, I don’t know why but I think he was telling the truth.” He turns around and walks further away from Joe, who follows close behind him.

They exit the marketplace through the west side. Nicky looks at every alleyway, at every dark spot hoping to get a clue.

“Nicky please, we need to leave.”

“No not yet, they’re-” And then he sees them. Cowering being a large trashcan. A boy and a girl both less than ten years of age. They’re covered in dirt and their hair is matted. But it’s them, the children of the US ambassador. “Hey,” Nicky kneels in front of the children. “Don’t be afraid, your father sent us to take you back to him.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out two packs of chocolate and hands them to the kids. Carefully he picks up the girl and Joe picks up the boy. They cover the children’s faces with their turbans.

Although Andy is happy to see the children what Joe tells her makes her worry. “We should leave as soon as possible. Nubia communicate with control tell them we need an exit immediately. Nile, Taylor, Chelsea be on the lookout.” Weapons hidden, they head out. One sits at the motel lobby, the other sits at a restaurant a few yards away, and Taylor takes to the rooftops.

An hour later, they’re told the helicopter is on their way. One by one they slip out of the hotel and make their way to the desert.

  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to start off by saying thank you thank you thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos, it means a lot! :)
> 
> Also, this is a very difficult fic to tag when you’re dealing with past lives. I don’t want to give the story away in the tags, I prefer it to unfold as you read, so keep an eye out on the notes for some additional info/tags. 
> 
> So I'm keeping timelines and historical events vague because I'm too lazy to actually research them. If there's anything too glaring feel free to let me know and I'll try to fix it. Thank you and enjoy.

From his position, Ra can see the helicopter approaching its destination. He can also see the ambush that awaits the group.

He sits back and watches the action unfold before him. The men attacking are not particularly well trained but they attack with fervor, they’re part of radical sect. They pose a danger to mortals and maybe the children, but not to his Nicky, who’s been fighting for far longer than he can remember.

Ra watches as the gang kills the male soldier and then the female with the blond hair. More thugs appear, just as planned. Nicky takes a bullet for Andy, and Ra takes action. He takes out his khopesh and runs into battle.

_There’s too many_ , Andy thinks as she dodges a sword and stabs the man. No matter how many she stabs, no matter how many they take down, more and more appear.

The helicopter is shot down, there’s no where to run. They can only fight. 

_We’re going to be overrun_ , she thinks. Beside her, Nubia drops dead. _I’m going to die here_. She just hopes Nile, Joe and Nicky make it out with the children.

And then a blur of white robes appears and with a sickle sword he dispatches most of their enemies, the rest run before he can finish them off as well.

The four raise their weapons against the stranger who is drenched in blood.

“Who are you?” Andy demands.

Ra puts his weapon down and raises his hands. “I’m a friend,” he says in perfect English and then he uncovers his face.

Instantly they recognize him. and it takes a lot of will power for Joe not to shoot this man on the face.

“I’ve been looking for you for quite some time.” He says to Nicky. “Come I’ll take you to a safe place while you wait for your next helicopter.”

None of them move. “We can look after ourselves, and we don’t leave our dead,” Nile says.

“I’m sure you can. I’m also pretty sure those thugs that ran away will come back with more people. Are you sure you want to expose the children to more violence? Besides, we have much to talk about, all of us. When we get to my house, I can send a team to retrieve your dead.”

They look at one another, and silently agree to follow the man. As they walk Nicky takes a hold of Joes hand to anchor himself. Every time the man looks at him his body temperature rushes, and his insides twist in a way they only have for Joe.

The man leads them far into the city. They walk so far, they have to carry the children, whose feet start hurting. They’re led into a gated area with a large house and green garden. There’s security outside and inside the gated area. He whispers to one of the soldiers standing by. The soldier gathers more men and they head out.

“I have ordered them to retrieve the bodies of your friends and take them to a mortuary nearby. You can tell your government to retrieve them from there.”

Inside, the house is fresh and bright.

“Upstairs, there are rooms for you to use to clean up. I’ll be down here when you are ready to talk.”

Ra waits patiently as his guest clean themselves from dirt and blood. He hears them discussing him and weighing whether they can trust him or not. Joe unsurprisingly says no they can’t trust him. Nile reminds them that he helped them. Andy says they should listen to him and Nicky stays quiet. It isn’t until they’ve put the children to bed and called the American government that the quartet comes down. They’re cautious around him and sit on the chairs as if they’re ready to bolt out.

Ra hides his amusement to all of this.

“Who are you?’ Andy is the first to speak, ever the leader.

“An immortal like you, my apologies, like them.”

“How do you know I’m not an immortal anymore?”

“I’ve been dreaming about you, like you’ve been dreaming about me.” He looks at Nicky, but Nicky says nothing.

“Why did you help us?” Nile asks.

“Because we are the same.”

“You came to Nicky in a dream. Why come to him in shadows why not be straightforward?” Joe demands.

“Because I did not know how you would react to an outsider who knows what you are. I do not like drawing attention to myself, I live here in relative peace, I don’t want that to change. I am sorry about your teammates, that I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”

“How did you do it, speak to me in my dreams?” Nicky asks in that soft voice of his.

“There are many things I can do, that you have forgotten how to.”

“Like what?” Andy asks.

 _Like speak through my mind_ , he transmits to all of them.

It startles them and unsettles them.

“And fire,” Nile speaks up. “Can we… produce fire from our hands.”

“It’s a hard thing to do but possible for the very old who have trained.”

“So, the dreams I’ve had,” she looks at Andy, “they’re real.”

There’s silence for a little bit and then Nicky again. “You haven’t told us your name.”

Ra’s eyes soften and he gives an almost smile. “My name is Ra.”

“Ra, is that short for something?”

“No.”

“How long have you been alive?” Andy asks.

“A long time.”

“How long?”

He looks at each one of them, then settles his gaze on Nicky’s pale eyes. “I am the first immortal. I watched the Garden of Eden grow and wither away. I taught the first man to write and I founded Egypt. I am more than ten thousand years old.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N additional tag: Nile/Quynh

  


Nicky lays in the bed unable to go to sleep. He stares at the wall. Something compels him to get up. Slowly he untangles himself from Joe’s arms and quietly makes his way out of the room and to the upper floor.

He doesn’t bother knocking.

Ra is there on the balcony staring out at the directions of the pyramids. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

Nicky looks out, they’re far away and look tiny.

“You have a lot of questions, I can give you the answers.”

Nicky is silent for a moment. There’s so much confusion in him, he doesn’t know where to start. “Why does it feel like I know you, or at least like I should?”

“Going straight for it aren’t you. We did know each other, long ago.”

“I’ve never met you in my life.”

“No, not in this life. In your first one.”

Nicky goes still with shock. Then he sways, the room feels like it’s spinning. Ra guides him to his bed. “We are truly immortal. If we die, we are born again,” he whispers in fear and awe.

“Yes. Sooner or later, we are born again.”

“I knew you in my past life.”

“Yes, we were together for 7,000 years.”

Nicky inhales in shock. “7,000 years! I don’t remember any of it.” He isn’t sure what unsettles him more, the vast amount of time or having no memory of it.

Ra takes a hold of his chin and looks straight into his eyes. Slowly they’re transported into the past. Into ancient Egypt where there is a great statue of Ra, and beside it another statue of Nicky. The stone statues are over a hundred feet tall and overlook all of Egypt and can be seen from anywhere on the ground floor.

“This used to be ours,” Ra whispers in his ear. “We were gods. We made the greatest civilization in the world, unlike anything the world had ever seen.”

In the distance he sees two figures dressed in white and blue. It’s them, walking on a well-worn path. The people around them fall to their knees and touch their foreheads to the sand. Some of them pray to them.

“This is obscene,” Nicky whispers. His hand goes to the small cross and Muslim medallion kept under his shirt.

“It’s easy think that now. Back then, it was another time. There was no Christianity, no Muhammad, no Buddha. There was only us.”

“What happened to us? Why did I die? And where have you been?”

Slowly they leave the past and they’re back in the room, overlooking the ancient pyramids.

Ra caressed Nicky’s jawline. “Those questions are complicated to answer. It’ll come back to you. With my guidance, it’ll all come back. You’ll remember the experiences we shared, the world before civilization. You’ll remember our time together.” He leans in closer and his lips ghost over Nicky’s, “… and the love we shared.”

For a moment Nicky is lost in Ra’s voice and romantic past, but he snaps out of it before their lips fully touch. “Love?” Nicky quickly stands up. “I’m Nicolo di Genova, I was born in Italy and I love Joe.”

“Joe, what is Joe compared to us. You and I spent 7,000 years together, what’s 900 years compared to that? Nothing!”

“I may have loved you once, perhaps, but not anymore. Stay away from me and Joe. Tomorrow we’ll be leaving and we wont see each other again.”

Ra waits for the door to close and then he laughs. Does Nicky really think he’s going to give up that easily? How silly of him.

True to his word Nicky leaves the next morning.

“If you want some really answers let me know, if you want help, let me know.” Ra tells Andy.

She gives him a look that tells him, she won't be coming to him for anything at all. That's fine. His plans wont be unraveled so easily. 

He watches the group walk away. And when they’re far enough, Quynh joins him.

“You’re letting them go. Why?”

“They’re afraid for all the wrong reason. I need them to be afraid for the right reasons.”

Quynh turns her brown eyes to him. “You made a promise. You promised me her. You said-”

“I know what I said. Don’t worry, as soon as I have Nicky, you’ll have Nile. And we’ll all be one happy family, ruling over everything.”

  



	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a while to update, work has sapped my energy. 
> 
> As always thank you for your comments and kudos ☻ ☻ ☻

  


Before they even get settled, Nicky throws himself at Joe. He kisses him with a ravenous passion.

Joe reciprocates. He pushes back and they tumble onto the bed. He kisses the pale neck, goes underneath his shirt and caresses his sides and swipes at a nipple with his thumb. He can feel Nicky’s bulge grow underneath the thick fabric of jeans. He gets rid of both their shirts and makes a path of kisses starting from Nicky’s collarbone down to his navel.

They make love three times that night.

Afterwards, they stare at each other with lazy smiles and happy hearts.

Joe is happy, he’s happy to be back home, he’s happy to be in bed with Nicky. But he can’t help but wonder. “I don’t want to ruin the moment. But I can’t help but wonder, did something happen with Ra?”

The smile on Nicky’s face fades, but the mirth in his eyes remains. “Do you think something happened?”

“No, not physically, but maybe in another manner?”

Nicky is silent for a little bit, his pale eyes become more serious. He scoots even closer to Joe. “We’ve always been honest with each other. And that’s how I want it to remain, now and forever. He confirmed I had another life. He showed me a little bit of it. He showed me and him in Egypt, ruling together, being worshipped as gods. He said that he and I were together for 7,000 years.”

“7,000 years,” Joe inhales sharply.

Nicky continues, “He made it obvious he wants to continue the relationship. But I told him there’s only one person in my heart and his name is Yusuf Al-Kaysani.” Nicky leans in and kisses Joe’s lips.

“You’re not curious at all about your past life with him? 7,000 years is a long time.”

“A part of me is, but not enough to compromise what we have. Like you said, it’s a past life. This is my life now and I love it because I have you.”

They fall asleep with their foreheads touching and holding onto each other.

Nicky dreams of a garden. It’s beautiful. Full of green grass and tall trees. There’s a river of fresh water that flows through it. He drinks from it uses it to grow his garden, 

He’s alone for a long time, for some reason he doesn’t mind. He spends his days tending to the animals and gathering fruit and vegetables for himself.

And then, a man in white shows up. He’s tall, with long blond hair, and clear blue eyes.

He extends his hand, Ki takes it and he’s led out into a place where the grass isn’t quite as green and where he learns to kill animals for food.

For the first time a kiss is placed on Ki’s lips and for the first time his heart flutters with an emotion he cannot classify.

They wander the world together. They walk through deserts and rainforest, and vast flatlands, and when they see the endless ocean for the first time, they make a raft and wonder the ocean for many months. They’re never afraid. Ki doesn’t know what fear is, and Ra is incapable of feeling it.

They land in new land and explore that too. They walk through swamps, and lands with grass so tall they have to keep calling out to each other so as to not lose the other.

Many years later of wondering the earth they head back. The garden isn’t there anymore. And there are more people. “I’ll build you a kingdom,” Ra tells him. “A home worthy of us. A place ruled by us. Where everyone can see our might.”

Ki shakes his head. “I don’t need it. I like us wandering the world.”

“We can still do that. But this will be our home, where we can come back to and rest.”

It takes time. Slowly it begins to take shape. Ki has no interest in rule, so Ra makes all the decisions. First, they call him leader, then chief, then pharaoh, then the son of the sun, then the sun itself. And then finally what he always wanted: god.

Temples are built for him. Statues erected in his honor.

In awe of his immortality and his power, the people make stories of him, stories full of imagination. Ra is full of vanity when he hears them, for his part Ki laughs when he hears them. He’s not malicious about it, he doesn’t know how to be malicious. But he finds the tall tales amusing.

“Don’t laugh love,” Ra says gently. “Maybe one day I will touch the sun.”

“It’s so hot here, I don’t know why anyone would want to get any closer to it. Why did you choose this place?”

“There are many people here. And it’s close to where I found you.”

“The garden. Sometimes I miss it. I wish it hadn’t withered away so fast.”

“I’ll build you a garden, a better one.”

“Here? The only things that grow here are thorns.”

“Ye of little faith. Just you wait.”

Ra kisses him. As always, he’s gentle and loving as if worshipping him.

Nicki wakes up, stiff between his legs. He scrunches up his eyes and wills it to go away, but it wont. Silently he untangles himself from Joe’s arms and goes to the bathroom. He refuses to masturbate to the memories of another lifetime with another man. Instead he turns on the shower to cold water. He stands under the cool water for a while until finally his member softens. “Why is this happening,” he whispers to himself.

For 900 years he’s been so happy. Why was this happening now?

 _Because we belong together_ , a voice reaches out.

“Get out of my head!” Nicky whispers ferociously.

_I’ll leave you for now, but I’m not giving up on us. We will be together again, it is our destiny._

  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: additional tag: hints of past infidelity

  


Nile finds him in the kitchen, looking at an old recipe book. He looks focused but when she sits across from him, he looks up at her.

“Joe told us about the reincarnation thing. You had a past life.”

Nicky only nods. Nile looks a bit lost, a bit overwhelmed. “After almost a millennium, I can still be surprised. I can only imagine how it is for you. To find out you’re immortal and can potentially be born again and again until…” he trails off. He doesn’t really want to think about it. His hand goes to the medallion. As long as he has Yusuf now and in all of his potential other lives, he’ll be fine, he knows it.

“I keep dreaming about her,” Nile confesses.

“Quynh, you never met her so-”

“No, they’re becoming different.”

“How so?”

“More…intimate.” Nile turns her big brown eyes full of confusion to Nicky. “I think we were together, the way you and Joe are. Is, is that possible?”

Nicky thinks back on his own dreams with Ra. How confusing they are, how unwanted. But they’re not a lie. As much as he hates them, they’re true. “I think that anything is possible.”

Nile’s breath stutters. “In my dreams, she feels insane, and so powerful. She frightens me.”

“Ra angers me,” Nicky confesses. “He thinks he can come into my life and everything will be like it was before, me and him. But I confess, there is fear there too. He knows more about me than I do. He has thousands of years worth of memories about us that I don’t. He may not be insane like Quynh, but that doesn’t mean I want something to do with him. Perhaps these are some of your feelings too?”

Nile nods, “I feel like she has some type of power over me, or like she wants too. She makes me feels weak. And I hate that. As much as it pains me to say this, I don’t think she has good intentions.”

Nicky reaches out and places his hand over hers. “We will protect you, Nile. What we have here is a family, and we look out for each other and _no one_ comes between any of us.”

A small smile graces her face. “Thank you,” she says.

“You’re going to frighten the poor girl,” Ra tells Quynh.

“You send dreams to him, why can’t I.” Quynh challenges.

“He and I were together for thousands of years. You and her were together for a few hundred. My foundation with Nicky is solid. Yours isn’t.”

“Just because we weren’t together as long doesn’t mean my love for her isn’t as real as yours for him.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying go easy on the girl. She doesn’t remember her past live and she is new to immortality. Bombarding her nightly with your most cherished memories will only frighten her.”

“She has no reason to be afraid of me.”

“Oh, Quynh. You were a warlord back then, your most cherished memories are of you conquering and killing. You frighten everyone.”

“My most cherished memories are of me with her.”

Ra rolls his eyes. “Be careful of what you show her. You might trigger some memories you might not want her to remember. Like how she came to meet you. Mmh, remember that? Remember taking her away from her family? Remember her begging you for mercy on behalf of her people? What you call love Quynh, she might call something else.”

Quynh’s lips turn into a snarl. “If you think me delusional, then you are too.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, I remember. I remember meeting you and Ki in Egypt. I made the pilgrimage there to meet the so-called gods. I remember how besotted you were with him. I remember how you did everything for him. Had statues and temples made for him. You had an entire city dedicated to him. You decorated him in gold and white. You made grand proclamations that he was the moon and you the sun. One couldn’t exist without the other. Meanwhile he had eyes for another. Meanwhile he was going-” A hard resonating slap cuts her off before she keeps going.

The cut on her cheek quickly begins to heal. “Don’t think you’re better than me,” she says. “you’re not. I changed, in my years after meeting her. You haven’t. You’re still the same megalomaniac who thinks everyone should worship. And I’ll tell you something else. I’ve spent time with him, with Nicky in _this_ life. Let me tell you, he’s not the same naïve fool he was when you took him out of that garden. And that love you mock, that love he and Joe share, it’s stronger than anything you ever had with him.”

She leaves him standing in the living-room, feeling cold, feeling so angry his hands shake with the need to destroy.

Only a room away, with only a wall separating him and them, Booker listens to it all.

  



	10. Chapter 10

  


Alex sends them on a mission to rescue three diplomats who’ve been captured by the same sect that took the children.

Feeling the loss of their three teammates, the quartet decide to go alone, which is protested but Andy doesn’t change her mind.

This time they go to India, a place vibrant with color and culture, but overcrowded.

They do have better information this time. They head to the outskirts of the city, to a hill in front of a mountain where there is no traffic and very few houses. They settle among the trees and turn their attention to a dirty white house with a fence around it. There is no activity coming from the house.

Nile and Andy take up the first watch.

Hopefully, there’s no voice to guide Nicky this time, Joe thinks as they settle to get some shut eye. He wants to save the diplomats, but he doesn’t want to see Ra at all.

“Nicky, Joe,” Nile shakes them awake. “There’s movement.”

The two men rub the sleep from their eyes.

“There’s at least 10 armed men. They’re keeping the hostages in the basement.” Andy says.

They watch four men pile into a car and drive away.

“This could be our chance,” Nicky says.

They watch the car disappear at the curve of the hill. The rest of the men gather around the table to play cards.

“Gear up,” Andy says.

They put on their tactical gear and their night vision googles and make their way on the side of the hill.

Their footfalls make no noise, their breathing is controlled. Five bullets fly in silence.

There aren’t three hostages, there’s nine. And some look like they’ve been there for a while.

“We’re here to help you,” Nicky says as they stare with frightened eyes.

“Who are you?” A man asks in Cantonese.

“We come on behalf of the American government. We’re here to help.” Joe says in the man’s language.

There’s three American’s, the ones they were sent for, two Chinese, one Russian, and three Europeans. Although dirty, they’re all wearing expensive suites and shoes, and some even wear watches and jewelry.

“What the hell is going on?” Nile asks, because this doesn’t seem right.

“Let’s get out of here first, we’ll ask questions later.” Andy says. She too can tell something isn’t right

They release them from their chains and make their way up. They open the front door and are confronted by twenty or so men with guns pointed at the quartet.

They fire with no thought and all abandon.

The first think Nile does is throw her body in front of Andy. She takes all the bullets.

Nicky and Joe take their fair share of bullets, but they manage to fire back.

“Protect her!” Nicky yells over the gunfire.

Nile covers Andy’s back as they retreat into the mountains. The hostages go back into the house for shelter.

With broken bones and open wounds Joe and Nicky fight against the assailants. They use their guns and their swords and their bare hands and afterwards they’re surrounded by dead and dying bodies.

Joe finds a man with a gut wound. A slow and painful death. He kneels by the man. “Who are you!? What do you want with all these hostages!?”

“The end is coming,” he says with an accent. “This is the beginning of it. All false empires will fall, and one will rise.”

The house behind them, where all the hostages are, explodes. Being only 30 feet away from it, the force of the explosion sends Nicky and Joe flying several feet away.

Knowing no mortal man or woman could survive such force, Joe and Nicky stare in horror at the lives lost.

“Nicky! Joe!” Nile comes running toward them. “She took two bullets, she wont stop bleeding!”

Thirty minutes later, a helicopter drops off men and women at the site to investigate and see what they can find. The same helicopter takes the quartet away. A medic starts working on Andy’s injuries right away.

Nile kneels right next to Andy and takes a hold of her hand. “It’s going to be alright Andy, you’ll be just fine.”

Nicky grabs his cross and medallion and whispers a prayer. Joe holds his hand in silent comfort and support.

Alex waits patiently for his call to be answered.

“What happened?”

“The nine died, just like you wanted. As we speak there are four governments in complete chaos and blaming each other for the deaths of their people. Soon they’ll be done with words and the claws will come out.”

He can hear a smile forming on the other man’s lips. “Good, that’s good.”

“Andy was injured, as you hoped it would happen. She took two bullets. She is stable but extremely weak. It will take some time for her to completely heal.”

“And Nicky?”

“Completely fine.”

“Thank you, Alex.” Ra says. “When the New Order is established and I reign supreme as a god-king, you will be rewarded for your loyal service.”

“Thank you R-“ The call is hanged up before he can finish his sentence.

  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm half asleep right now and I'm hoping there aren't any glaring errors in this chapter. 
> 
> A huge thank you to everyone leaving comments they mean the world, hugs for everyone!!!

  


Ra remembers wandering alone for so long. He remembers meeting people and watching them die so fast. Mortal’s lifespans are so short. Long ago he decided that there was no point for mortals, that their lives had absolutely no meaning.

And then he saw him. Ki. He watched him from afar for a long time. He watched him tend to the animals, even the most ferocious ones acted as docile as doves. He watched him bathe in clean waters. He watched him sleep under trees in beds of flowers. He watched him for so long he realized the man was not mortal. No, he was extraordinary, like him.

It was exceptionally easy to take him out of the garden.

It was so easy to fall in love with such a sweet creature.

And Ki was the sweetest of all forbidden fruits.

The first kiss they shared was like being struck by lightning. The first time he kissed that beautiful skin he was entranced. And the first time he took Ki, he became obsessed.

Ki belonged to him, then, now, and forever.

If only Yusuf had never existed.

If only Yusuf had never crossed their path, then the world would be one kingdom, ruled by Ra with Ki at his side.

Ra wants nothing more than to kill this man. Want to burn him in fires so hot his bones are no more. He wants to erase all traces of him from Ki’s memory.

From what he can tell they don’t remember their time in Egypt. Their time together in Egypt was so short lived, mere seconds in the lifespan of an immortal such as Ra. Yet their feelings for one another burn hotter than the desert heat, was brighter than the sun itself. That short lived affair had changed everything.

This time things will be different. This time Ki will choose Ra over Yusuf.

He gives it a few days and just like Alex said, words of anger turn into threats. Three nations against one. The Russians, Chinese and United Kingdom all want the United States to turn in the immortals responsible for the catastrophe that ended the lives of very important people.

The United States goes silent.

And Ra knows it’s time to act.

He heads over to the house of the immortals. It’s night and the house is dark. He knocks on the door and Nicky answers right away. He’s dresses in loose sweatpants and an oversized beige shirt. Comfortable, but not to Ra’s taste. Nicky should be draped in silks and gold or naked.

“Why are you here?” Nicky asks in that soft voice of his, but his eyes are not soft, they’re sharp as knives.

“We need to talk.”

Nicky doesn’t argue. Instead he moves to the side and Ra walks in. The house is nice, warm, and lived in, but again not to Ra’s taste.

Yusuf and Nile are in the living room, as if they had been waiting for him. Nicky sits next to Yusuf.

“I heard what happened to Andy, my condolences.”

“She’s not dead,” Nile says with an angry edge.

“I know, but from what I understand she came close to death.”

“Why are you here?” Yusuf asks. His tone says Ra is not wanted there, and his eyes are hard. 

“I have a proposition.” He pauses. “I can help save Andy.”

“Andy is already healing. It may take some time, but she’ll be fine.”

“You misunderstand. I can help save Andy from mortality. I can make her immortal again.”

“What? How!?” Nile exclaims.

“Like I said I’m old. I have a lot of knowledge that’s been lost through the centuries.”

Nicky stares at him. “What do you want in return,” he asks.

“I’m glad you asked.” Ra smiles, his blue eyes lock with Nicky’s. “I will gladly give you this tonic, if you come with me.”

Joe is the first to react. He stands from the couch. “Get the fuck out.” He spits out. “get the fuck out before I throw you out.”

Ra smiles a bemused smile. As if Joe’s anger is childish and maybe even stupid. “Andy will die. It could happen today, tomorrow, maybe in 50 years from old age, she will die. I am offering the cure. All I want-”

“Not like this,” Nile interrupts. “Andy wouldn’t want to be saved like this. She wouldn’t sacrifice anyone to save herself,”

“No, she wouldn’t.” Andy stands in the doorway. Sweat on her brow from the exertion of walking a few yards from her room to the living-room. She looks straight at Ra. “I would rather die a slow painful death then see Nicky at your side. Nicky belongs here, with us. And you need to get the fuck out.” Her face is determined and her eyes sharp with hate for the man that would dangle her life to get what he wants. Her body shivers with weakness and Nicky quickly goes to her side with a soft “Andy” on his lips.

Ra smiles but there’s absolutely no warmth in his face. “A storm is coming,” he says. “It will sweep you up and hurt all of you. Remember, I offered help.” He looks at Nicky. “And the offer stands.” He turns and leaves.

“Andy, sit.” Nicky slowly and patiently helps her get to the couch. Gently he sits her down.

“Promise me you wont go to him. Nicky if it’s my time, it’s my time. And I’d rather die in peace knowing you’re with the people you love and love you back. I don’t want to live knowing you’re in an awful place with that man. Promise me Nicolo.”

Nicky looked at his friends, his family. They all share Andy’s feelings. “I don’t want to lose you,” he confesses and Andy tenses. “But I promise I won’t go to him. I promise.”

Andy smiled. She takes a couple of deep breathes to calm her over exerted body. “As much as I hate him, he is right. There is a storm coming.”

“Yeah, we saw the news.”

“We gave it a shot, working for the government. And it didn’t work out. It’s time we disappeared again.”

  



	12. Chapter 12

  


Disappearing from the government isn’t as easy as it used to be. There’re cameras everywhere. And their pictures are posted on billboards and all over the internet.

They think about using one of their old Ukrainian contacts, who hates all governments and would do anything to give them the finger.

However, Alex comes to them first. “I’m sorry it played out like this,” he says. “I want to help you. You’ve done so much good. The least I can do is help you in this.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

He shrugs “Only if I get caught. Please, let me help you.”

They go to a safe house and wait for everything else to be set up.

He contacts them two days later. “The helicopter will pick you up from this location, then you’ll take a plane and head to the Congo where there is no extradition to the US. Good luck and I wish you four the best.”

“Thank you, Alex,” Andy says sincerely.

“It’s the least I can do. It was an honor working with the four of you.” He shakes their hands and watches them walk away, a strange glint in his eyes.

They’re on a cargo plane. Each one carrying just one backpack. They’re silent. Nile’s looking at pictures of her family, Nicky and Joe are holding onto each other, and Andy is lost in her own mind.

It’s a long plane ride, so they all take a nap. They don’t wake up until they feel the plane’s rough landing. They shoulder their backpacks and head out of the plane.

There’s thirty men dressed in brown fatigues with rifles all pointed at Andy.

Alex walks forward, dressed in a dark suit, like always. “Don’t take it personal,” he says to her. “It really was an honor working with you. But the world is about to change, and I will be a part of it.” He notices Joe itching to go for his sword. “These men have instructions to shoot her first. You can fight, and the three of you may walk away, but she certainly wont.” He takes out a paper and shows it to them. “And they might suffer the consequences of the actions you take.” On the paper there’s pictures, names, and addresses of the mortals they left behind, thinking it was be the best course of action for them. “I suggest you do as your told and I promise you none of you or them will be hurt.”

Hesitantly and angrily they give up their weapons.

“Where are you taking us?” Andy asks.

“Somewhere safe,” Is all Alex says.

They’re shoved into two separate Humvees and they take off into the desert.

“We’re in Egypt.” Joe whispers to Nicky.

Nicky knows this, he just didn’t want to admit it to himself. He turns to Joe. “Don’t do anything that might get you killed.” He says.

Joe’s eyes narrow. “Why are you so worried for my immortality all of a sudden?”

“If he can give Andy immortality, I fear he can take it away as well.”

Realization dawns on Joe. “You think this is his doing.”

Nicky nods. “He said we belonged together. I know he loves being worshiped, being thought of as a god. If I’m right, he planned all this. He planned the deaths of the nine politicians. Planned for four very powerful government to start fighting and anticipated we would go on the run. Joe, we mustn’t underestimate him anymore. And you mustn’t provoke him. Please, Joe, promise me you’ll stay alive.”

Joe shakes his head.

“Yusuf,” Nicky says desperately and with pleading eyes.

“I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Yusuf, please. If I lose you- I can’t live without you!”

“He’s my enemy and I will kill him with my bare hands.”

“Yusuf it’s not that simple and you know it. He can do things we can’t. He’s been alive for so long. No one gets to be alive for that long without having backup plans to their backup plans. If it’s that easy I will kill him myself, but-”

“Would you?”

“What?”

“Would you really kill him? 7,000 years is a very long time. And from I can tell, he is very rich and powerful.”

Nicky looks at him with wounded eyes. “How can you say that to me? I love you with all my heart. And I never cared about riches or power, you know this.”

Joe shakes his head. Yes of course he knows this. He knows he would die for Nicky and Nicky would die for him. In fact, they each have. He’s ready to apologize, ask for forgiveness for speaking so foolishly, but before he can utter another word they’re shoved out of the car.

Before them stands a grand palace of immense proportions. It isn’t crumbling down like all ancient Egyptian monuments. In fact, it looks completely intact and lived in.

The soldiers push them, and they begin walking. Inside, the ancient palace is lit by torches, the columns are ancient, but they look new. The floor must be freshly scrubbed. They enter a space so large they’re sure their previous house could fit 10 times over with some room to spare.

In the room are three figures.

They recognize Ra immediately. But it takes them a few more seconds to realize who is behind him.

Andy and Nile gasp as they recognize Quynh and Joe gets angry when he sees Booker next to the man who’s endangered them.

“Welcome everyone,” Ra says in a booming voice, “to your new home. From here we’ll be one family and rule over the entire world.”

  



	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not familiar with ancient Egypt or modern Egypt and I’m too lazy to do much research, hopefully it’s not too obvious in my writing. If it is, I’m sorry and I hope you can still enjoy it. 
> 
> As always kudos and comments are very much appreciated and although I'm not replying to any of them for fear of giving the ending or something away I really do enjoy reading them :) :) :) :)

  


Nicky keeps telling himself to calm down, to control his breathing, that having a full-blown panic attack isn’t going to help anyone.

He’s in a room all by himself. It overlooks the city of Cairo on one side and the pyramids on the other.

The room he’s in is very beautiful, open, and airy, with white linen all around. But he doesn’t pay it any mind. All he can think about is Joe. Ra is insane, he’s come to that conclusion, Ra won’t take no for an answer. The easiest way to control Nicky is through Joe and Ra knows this.

Nicky runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Stop being so worried,” a voice says from the shadows, Ra steps forward. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt them, and I intend on keeping that promise.”

“Until things don’t go your way, right, that’s when you’ll hurt someone.”

Ra smiles. “It’s better if you behave, it’s better if they all behave. The seven of us can be great. We can all do great things together.”

“Including Joe?”

“Joe is an immortal, he is part of this family. And like I’ve said before I will not hurt him, unless provoked. Do you understand?”

Slowly, Nicky nods.

“Hopefully, he will understand as well.”

“What now? I’m your prisoner? What do you want now?”

“You are not my prisoner.”

“Of course that’s what I am. I don’t want to be here. Nile, Andy, and Joe don’t want to be here. We’re only here because you’ve threatened us, that’s the only reason.”

“I will help you remember your past. And then you will see what we had, how beautiful it was, how much you loved me. And then you’ll love me again.”

Nicky shakes his head. “You are delusional. Let’s say I do remember our past lives together. Let’s say I remember that love. It doesn’t matter. Because what you’ve done today, what you’ve done for the past weeks, it poisons everything, and it shows me how you really are. I can never love someone like you. Someone who kills freely, who threatens others. You are a megalomaniac who just wants to be worshipped, who wants to control everything around him.” Nicky looks Ra straight in his blue eyes. “Whatever love I had for you, it’s gone and it’s never coming back.”

Ra’s hand turns into a fist. He thinks about striking him, about showing him his place but knows that will not help his cause at all. Instead he leaves in furious strides.

Quynh takes a step forward, toward Nile’s room, and then a step back. She goes around in circles, she takes a step forward and then backs out again.

Nile shows up. “I can hear your footsteps,” she says.

For a minute Quynh is speechless. Finally, she’s there in front of her. Nile, the woman who conquered her heart so long ago. She takes a step forward in hopes of touching her, but Nile steps back.

“You’re with him. You helped him in this deranged plan.” Nile’s voice is cold, her eyes are cold.

Quynh takes a few second to calm her thundering heart. “Nile,” she says, “I did what I had to do to get you back.”

Nile scoffs. “I saw you killing people. I saw you burning them, I felt them burning, I heard them screaming for mercy. And you justify that by saying you had to get me back!”

“They were not innocent. They were murderers.”

“There were children. I saw you killing children!”

“The children of murderers!” Quynh screams back. “Descendants of the men who threw me in the ocean! Why should their line continue when I lost 500 hundred years thanks to their forefathers!? I died millions of times thanks to the actions of evil men, I deserve some justice!!!”

“Justice? You think it’s just to kill a child? You think it’s just to burn a defenseless woman?” Nile shakes her head in horror. “Andy spoke of you as a hero. Andy cries every time your name is brought up. I think if she heard you now, she would cry for another reason.”

“Don’t judge me. You haven’t gone through what I’ve gone. You haven’t died repeatedly for 500 years. You haven’t been stuck in a metal coffin dreaming of the love of your life reincarnated and dying over and over again and being unable to help.” Tears gather in Quynh’s eyes. “Nile, this isn’t how I wanted it to happen. All I wanted, was to see you again, to hold you again. To tell you how much I love you and-”

“Stop.” Nile says firmly. “I’m not prepared for all of this. I can’t deal with reincarnation, past lives, past loves. I can’t. I-” She doesn’t know what to say. Life was so much simpler when she was mortal. Now… now everything is a clusterfuck. She looks at the woman before her.

Quynh’s eyes are teary, hopeful, and frightened all at the same time. Her body is rigid with strong emotions that she can’t act out because she knows she’ll be rejected.

Nile turns around and goes back into the room she was taken into by soldiers, followers of Ra. She throws herself on her bed and screams into a pillow.

Quynh feels the raw scream in her very heart and she flinches back in pain and her tears fall.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Quynh. I'm not trying to make her outright evil like Ra, but I believe that a person who was tortured for 500 years by dying repeatedly over and over again isn't going to be in the best mental state.


	14. Chapter 14

  


Ra is on his laptop reading documents sent to him by Alex when Quynh comes storming in. Her footsteps are loud and right away he knows there will be shouting.

“This isn’t what we agreed on.” She stops right in front of Ra. “You said we would help Andromache, you said we would help them, and they would see how good we were, and they would join us of their own free will!”

“It wouldn’t have worked.” Ra says calmly as he sits back in his chair. 

“You don’t know that!”

“But I do. Nile fears you too much to come to you of her own free will. Your actions disgust her.” Quynh flinches but Ra doesn’t care. “Andromache wasn’t going to join us either, even if we gave her immortality back, she wouldn’t join us. And Nicky, Nicky is too stubborn. This was the only way we could have them back in our lives. I suggest you make the best of it.”

In the beginning everything was perfect. It was him and Ki and they were loved by everyone. They were worshipped and obeyed. Ki was perfect in every way. Ki loved him and obeyed him without question. Ki was always at his side, never astray, never questioning.

How he misses that, never questioning.

Now, this Ki doesn’t look at him with love. Doesn’t look at him with anything more than contempt.

All thanks to Yusuf, even in this life he can’t be free of that man.

It all went downhill the moment Yusuf came into their lives. How he wishes he had died in prison before ruining their lives!

Yusuf slowly poisoned Ki’s mind, slowly made him turn against him.

Ra throws the laptop across the room out of anger. It breaks into many pieces, it doesn’t make Ra feel any better. He wants to march to the room where Yusuf’s at. He wants to rip the man’s head off with his bare hands, but he knows the second any harm comes to Yusuf, Ki will stop obeying him.

Out of frustration he looks to the sky and flies away.

Three pairs of eyes stare in shock.

“Did he just..” Nile can’t even finish the sentence.

“He did,” three pairs of eyes turn to find Booker. “He’s quite powerful. It’s terrifying.” Slowly he shuffles into the room, unsure of his welcome. “I… I’m not with him. I tried getting away from him, but… well like I’ve said he’s powerful. He has this thing with his voice, it’s, it’s the creepiest thing in the world. I have to do what he says, no way to fight it.”

Nile acts first. She heads over to Booker and places her arms around him. “I’m glad you’re okay. It’s good to see you again.”

Booker smiles. “Thank you. And although I’m glad to see you, all of you, I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

“How did you come across them?” Andy asks.

“Six months after the exile. Quynh found me and she took me to him. He quickly laid it all out. He wants to rule the world, be god-king of the fucking universe. With you at his side,” he says at Nicky, “and the rest of as his supporters or something.”

“What about his powers? What can he do?” Nicky asks.

“You mean beside fly like some superhero, or supervillain in this case.” Booker sighs. “Somehow he and Quynh can produce fire from their hands. They said I could do it too. They tried to teach me, but it just felt too inhuman, I refused. They also have the voice thing.”

“What is that exactly?” Andy asks.

“They tell me to sit and I sit. I’ll try to get up and I can’t. I’ll try my hardest to disobey and it’s impossible. It’s more than that though. They got me to stop drinking just by telling me to stop. It’s a mental thing. I once saw Ra hypnotize or enchant some people, made them believe they were snakes, they writhed on the floor. He says we’ve lost the knowledge to so much. That we’re capable of so much more than living forever.”

“Andy?” Nile looks at the other woman. “Have you ever…”

“Produced fire from my hands? No. Definitely not. Neither did Quynh when I knew her, nor Lykon. I guess Ra really is the oldest of us.”

“Doesn’t mean he has a right to do what he is doing.” Nicky says.

“I didn’t say that. Doesn’t matter how old he is, doesn’t matter that he can fly and make fire. He won’t get away with what he’s doing. We’re going to stop him somehow, of that you can be sure.”

  



	15. Chapter 15

  


Nicky stares at himself in the mirror. He wonders what Ra sees in him. It’s been thousands of years since Egypt. Can someone love a person that’s been dread for thousands of years? He supposes it’s possible. Somehow, he knows that if it were him and Joe that it wouldn’t matter how long it’s been since their separation, he and Yusuf were meant to be together. He feels it in his bones.

But he feels nothing at all for Ra and yet Ra speaks of them as if they’re soulmates as if they’re meant to be together.

Nicky takes off his necklaces, kisses them before hiding them under his pillow and heading to Ra’s rooms.

There are no doors in the palace only large entrances, and although there are a dozen guards no one stops Nicky from entering Ra’s rooms.

Alex is there speaking with Ra. Nicky wants to shoot the man, the two-faced traitor.

Ra sees him and quickly dismisses Alex. Alex doesn’t even bother looking at him as he leaves.

“What did you give him?” Nicky asks. “To betray us?”

“He never really betrayed you. He was always loyal to me. I had him in my pocket since before he approached you.”

“How long have you known about us then?”

“I’ve been looking for you for a long time. But I didn’t find you until the rumors started about extremely skilled people who seem to defy death over and over again. You don’t know how grateful I am for today’s technology.”

“Why did you wait so long to approach us?”

“I didn’t want to approach empty handed. I want to give you an empire.”

“I don’t want an empire.”

Ra smiles. “You said the same thing when I offered you a kingdom, long ago.”

“Then, you aren’t very good at listing to me.”

“Perhaps, but you never lacked in anything. That is what I want for you, for us. To have a home.”

There’s silence for a second because Nicky knows this conversation is futile. Instead he asks, “How did I die?” He’s a little apprehensive to know about his first real death in a life he doesn’t remember, but he feels it’s important.

“What?”

“I died and you kept on living. You said we were worshipped and loved. So how did I die.”

Ra looks away, uncomfortable with the question. “I don’t like thinking about it. And it doesn’t matter. You’re here now, that’s all I care about.”

Nicky looks at him, aware the man doesn’t want to answer the question. “I saw you fly. Nile saw Quynh using fire. Booker says you can make people do or believe things. Can I do that? What are we capable of?”

Ra smiles and gets closer to Nicky. “We’re capable of so much. Not everyone gets to be called a god. You and I, we were powerful. I was good with fire, that’s why I was called the sun god. But you, you were called the moon because of your serenity. You would give them peace of mind.”

“How?” Nicky asks in disbelief.

“Simply by telling them. ‘Peace be with your family’ and there would be no more fighting. ‘Health be yours’ and whatever ailment they had was gone. You were very good at it, better than me. I know you don’t like being called a god, but that is what you are.”

“I want to remember. How can I remember?”

“I can show you.” Ra smiles.

With no hesitation Nicky demands to be shown.

He takes Nicky’s hand and leads him to his bed. Nervously, Nicky lays on the bed and Ra lays next to him.

“Close your eyes.” Nicky closes his eyes and he’s transported to a desert kingdom with great buildings, pillars, and pyramids. Nicky stares in awe, it’s breathtaking.

Ra shows him surrounded by people all kneeling at his feet and praying to him.

“You were loved.” Ra whispers in his ear

Nicky turns to face him. “Show me us.” He says.

Ra shows them together in bed, their moans are loud and carry throughout the palace.

“Is that all there was to us? Sex and vain worship?”

“What?” Ra is confused

“This is all you ever show me. Us being worshipped, us having sex. If that’s all there ever was, then I can see why I wouldn’t bother remember any of it.”

“Don’t mock what we had!”

“We didn’t have anything. Show me my death.”

Ra stands still. “No.”

Ra’s constant refusal only makes Nicky more insistent. “Why not? What are you trying to hide? Show me my death.”

Ra flinches. He shakes his head.

“I want to see my death.”

“You can’t make me,” Ra says against clenched teeth, as if struggling against an invisible force.

_Simply by telling them. You were very good at it._

Realization dawns on Nicky, he looks Ra straight in the eyes. “Show me my death.” He commands.

Against Ra’s will, they’re transported thousands of years into the past.

The room is completely white with a gentle breeze flowing through it. Nicky is on the floor, blood coming from his eyes and ears and a wound on his chest that is not healing.

“Don’t go please.” A man begs. “Please, don’t leave me,” 

That voice! He recognizes it.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We’re free of him now.” Nicky’s past version says. “It’s okay,” he says gently as if he weren’t bleeding out, as if his immortal life hadn’t come to an abrupt end. “He’s gone. And you and I, we will meet again. I know we will. You and I will be so happy one day. It will happen I know it will.”

“I’m not immortal, I’m not special like you.”

Nicky smiles. “Oh, my love, you’re so special, you can’t imagine. When we meet again, we won’t be separated ever again. I promise.”

“No, Ki please. Don’t leave me.”

_Goodbye my love,_ Ki says without moving his lips. _We’ll meet again one day. And nothing and no one will separate us._

In the room lay two so called gods, one being held onto by a mortal man.

  



	16. Chapter 16

  


Nicky’s eyes snap open and he stands up. “You killed me!”

“I killed you!? You killed the both of us! You and your sanctity for mortal lives!”

“I killed you? How did I do it? Tell me how did –”

A hand covers his mouth before he can finish his question. “I have to admit, I didn’t think your old power would come back to you so quickly and so forcefully. Guards!” He calls out. “Bind him, cover his mouth, don’t let him speak at all! Take him to his room and don’t let anyone see him.”

Nicky struggles against the guards, but he’s quickly placed in chains, a cloth covers his mouth, and he’s dragged away.

The men chain him to his bed. And where before there were five guards guarding his room now there are twenty.

Nicky struggles against the heavy chains but he only succeeds in hurting his wrists by making them bruise and bleed. After hours of futile struggle, he gives up, lays on the floor next to the bed, and closes his eyes.

He dreams of a world ruled by Ra. A world where all those who don’t worship him are instantly killed. He dreams of death and chaos and despair. Since Andy, Joe, and Nile refuse to do as Ra commands he places them in dark damp dungeons left there to rot and go insane.

Nicky wakes up from his nightmare with sweat on his brow.

Quynh stands before him, a knife on her right hand. She kneels in front of him. “I’m going to remove your mouth binding. The second you say anything that might sound like an order I’ll slice your throat and you’ll wake up the same way you are now. Do you understand?”

Nicky nods.

Quynh removed the cloth from his mouth. She looks at him then hands him a cup of cool water. Nicky drinks greedily. “This isn’t what I pictured when I decided to join him.” She confesses.

“What did you picture?”

“All of us together, happy. I miss you, I miss Joe, Andy, and Nile. I just wanted all of us to be together.”

“You did it for Nile. She told me about the dreams.”

Quynh nods. “In my first life, I wasn’t quite as old as you and Ra, but I lived in your time, I was a warrior queen. I took what I wanted when I wanted. I had an unbeatable army that did what I commanded without question. I will not discuss the morality of it, those were different times, everything was different back then. In one of my campaigns to conquer more lands I met a girl. She was full of spirit, full of bravado,” Quynh smiles as she remembers Nile in her first life, wielding a sword and standing her ground even thought she was outnumbered. “It wasn’t her intention, but I fell in love with her. I wanted her at my side, so I forced her to be at my side, through threats. Over time she showed me what kindness is, what mercy means. And it took me a long time, but I changed. And I was no longer a warrior queen but a helper, a defender for the defenseless. When she died of old age, I promised I would help humanity in her honor. Everything I did afterword was in her honor.”

“So why did she have those horrible dreams?” Nicky asks softly.

Quynh looks at him teary eyed and with a sneer. “It isn’t fair,” she says. “I did so much good. You know I did. And then I get captured and thrown into the ocean in a metal coffin. I lived and died for five hundred years over and over and over in that small confined space. Unable to do anything but scream in agony. And then she was reborn, and she was in danger, and she was getting shot and I was stuck at the bottom of the ocean, unable to comfort her, to hold her, to kiss her. What would you do if you were in my place? Wouldn’t you want revenge for being deprived of Joe’s touch? For being tortured for 500 years?”

Feeling Quynh’s agony, a tear rolls down Nicky’s cheek. “Yes,” he confesses. “But those men are dead, and I wouldn’t have killed children.”

“They wouldn’t have been born if their forefathers had been killed! I took the only revenge that was available to me!”

Nicky sighs and tries another tactic. “And now you are doing to me what was done to you.”

Quynh flinches back. “I’m not.”

“Are you sure? I’m imprisoned now, in chains, unable to see Joe. Separated from everyone else. Those are the actions of one man with followers.”

“I’m not his follower.” She says harshly.

“But you are his accomplice.”

Slowly she shakes her head in denial.

“Why are you here Quynh? What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Maybe absolution from a former priest.”

Nicky scoffs and laughs at the same time.

“I didn’t mean for all of this to happen. I was being selfish. I just wanted her back. And I wanted Andy to have her immortality again. I wasn’t thinking about you or Joe, and I’m sorry for that.”

Nicky nods, but doesn’t say anything.

There’s silence for a moment as Quynh gathers her courage. “I don’t know how to stop him.” She says in a small voice. “He’s very powerful. I’ve sparred with him. I’ve tested him, I’ve never won.”

“How is he so powerful? You’ve never died. And I somehow killed him once before. You should be more powerful than him, more knowledgeable.”

“You killed him, how?”

“I don’t know.”

“Nicolo, it does not make sense. You didn’t dream of him, no one dreamt of him. But we dreamt of you and this is your second life.”

Nicky slumps back. “Whatever I did, it wasn’t enough.”

“Maybe nothing can kill him.”

“We should still try. We can’t let him do whatever he wants.” Nicky looks at Quynh straight in the eyes. “Right, Quynh?”

This time she nods in affirmation. “I think the secret is in the past. Whatever you did, maybe we can build on it. Kill him properly. And if we can’t kill him, we can still weaken him enough to be free of him for a long time.”

“Yes, we have to take whatever we can get. But I don’t know how to go into the past.”

“Just think about a time and place. It’ll be hard at first, but you can do it. Just keep thinking about it and then you’ll find yourself there.”

They hear footsteps.

“I have to go. We can’t let him know we’re working together.” She placed the rag back in his mouth. “If you need anything contact me with your mind.”

My mind? He thinks before she disappears out of his room/prison.

  



	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N/A: WARNING!!! Some non-con elements in this chapter but no rape.

  


Ra enters the room and Nicky knows that whatever is going to happen he wont be able to stop him and he’ll hate Ra even more.

Ra hauls him off the floor and throws him on the bed.

Nicky, full of fear, tries to fight him off with his legs. Ra grabs them and sits on Nicky’s thighs. “Stop it,” he says. But Nicky tries to wriggle away from him. “Stop it!” His powerful voice makes the walls of the room tremble. “I’m not going to hurt you and If you don’t want your friends hurt you’ll do as I say.”

Nicky lays very still, but is eyes are full of fear and his chest rises and falls in horrid anticipation.

Ra caresses Nicky’s brows, a finger follows the bridge of his nose and traces his lips. “You never used to look at me with fear. When you first saw me, you looked at me with wonder. And then you looked at me with affection that then turned to love. I just want that back. Is that really too much to ask for?” He caresses Nicky’s neck and over his shirt thumbs over a nipple.

Nicky’s entire body stiffens.

“I was the first man to ever touch you. The first man to kiss you, the first man to enter you. We were one for so long. I miss that Ki. I’m so incomplete without you. Please, understand how much you mean to me.”

He kisses Nicky’s forehead, his cheek, and then finally his mouth. Nicky is unresponsive. Ra stops and looks at down at Nicky. “We’re immortal. You’ll come around sooner or later.”

He gets off of Nicky and instead lays next to him. He lays his head next to Nicky’s and wraps an arm around his waist. “You were meant for me, you’ve just gone astray for a bit that’s all.” He whispers before falling asleep.

Nicky tries to wriggle himself free from Ra’s possessive arm, but he can’t. Not wanting the man to wake up and continue his strange behavior he gives up and tries to do as Quynh said.

Egypt, he says in his mind. Take me to Egypt. He opens his eyes but he’s still in his room. But, the color of the ceiling is slightly lighter. There’s more light. There’s no Ra in his bed and he’s not in chains anymore.

Slowly Nicky gets up. He walks out of his room. There are no guards. He hears hurried footsteps, he follows the noise.

He gasps at what he sees, and he hides behind a pillar and spies his past self with another man. The man has long curly hair. It’s Yusuf! Now he knows for sure, the voice he recognized belongs to the love of his life!

The two lovers kiss. And they make love. It’s slow and beautiful and it makes Nicky ache for his Yusuf. Afterword they lay on the bed and their mood turns somber.

“I should go,” Yusuf says.

“So soon?”

“Who else is going to run the kingdom for your husband?”

“Don’t call him that please.”

“He’s ordered the deaths of the slaves’ children. I’m trying to dissuade him but… I can’t keep questioning him. He’ll replace me if I don’t do what he says. And my replacement will be much less kind than I am.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s starting to suspect.”

“Suspect what?”

“He told me to have guards follow you. He says you are too distracted and fears you’re keeping something from him. I don’t know if he thinks its infidelity but if he finds out it’ll be death for me and torture for you.”

“I have no fear for myself, only for you.”

Yusuf smiles a sad smile. “And I have only fear for you. You’re immortal. If he wants, he can keep you forever in some dungeon, unable to ever be free of him, even through death.”

“I fear you may be right. Each day he demands more obeisance from his subjects. Every day the number of deaths for slaves go up and he doesn’t care. I tried to tell him to go easy on them, but he scoffed at me he said…”

“What did he say?”

“He said ‘They’re just mortals, they’re meant to die. At least his way, they’re dying for a purpose.’ I’m sorry, he wasn’t always like this.” Ki looks away in shame.

“Somehow, I think he was always like that, and you didn’t see it. I don’t mean this as a reproach. But you’re very kindhearted and at times blind to the evils of men. When I first met you, you were so shy, so innocent. You were always behind Ra, always deferring to him. You never questioned anything. And when I told you the reality of the way he was running the kingdom you didn’t believe me. I had to show you the poverty of the slaves. The demands he was making on his subjects. The sacrifices the priests were making at his command.” Yusuf stops talking when he sees the distress in Ki’s face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I feel so foolish. I’ve been with Ra for so long, and yet I don’t really know him.”

“Because he knew if you saw all that, you wouldn’t have ever fallen in love with him.”

“Now that I’ve met you, now that I know you, I’m not sure it was ever love.”

Yusuf smiles and leans in to kiss Ki.

Nicky wakes up to the present. His hand goes under the pillow where he hid his and Yusuf’s necklaces. He holds on to them and he smiles.

  



	18. Chapter 18

  


Yusuf pulls against the chains for the thousandth time. They don’t budge. Earlier he thought about chewing off his hand, but he still has a cage with thick bars to somehow get out of. He punches the concrete floor out of frustration, breaking four of his fingers but he welcomes the pain. It’s much better than thinking about Ra and what he might be doing to Nicky.

He thinks he’s been in the dungeons for over a week, but he can’t be sure. The dungeons are always dark and there’s no way for him to keep track of time. Yusuf yawns and without meaning to he falls asleep.

He’s an ancient Egypt again. He wants to wake up, he doesn’t want to see another make out session between past Nicky and Ra. The noise of steel against steel draws him forward. 

He’s not sure what he’s seeing, and it takes a minute for his brain to comprehend.

It’s Nicky and Ra fighting each other with sickle swords. There’s blood on both of them, fresh and dried suggesting they’ve been fighting for a long time. On the corner there’s a figure clutching his side, blood seeping through his fingers, he wonders if the figure was on Ra’s side or Nicky’s.

He keeps watching the two immortals fighting. Ra is obviously the better fighter. He dodges easily and stabs and slices quickly. Nicky defends himself as best he can, but he can only keep up because of his rapid healing.

Ra becomes cocky and Nicky takes advantage. With a swing of his sword he cuts Ra’s windpipe, almost cutting his head completely off. Past Nicky takes advantage and raises his sword, chopping through Ra’s arm to chop his face in half. Nicky drops his sword and runs toward the slumped figure clutching his side. But before he can reach him a cold voice stops him in his tracks.

“What part of immortal don’t you understand?” Ra rises from the floor. His hand grows back, and his face and neck rapidly heal. “You’re not going to win this. I will win. I’m going to kill him,” he points at the slumped figure with his sword, “and then I’m going to have you flogged as punishment. And then,” he licks his lips, “I’m going to chain you to my bed and treat you as no better than a concubine.”

Nicky looks around for a weapon to use, Ra’s holding both of them.

“You and I, we’re meant to be together, one way or another. Our immortality ties us together, weather you want it to or not. He’s no one.” He nods over to the figure. “A man with a fleeting life, even now it escapes him. But you and I, we’ll last beyond the end of the world.”

Ki trembles in horror. Beyond the end of the world spent with this man, he’d rather die.

“No,” he says. “You will die here. I will make it happen. I command it.”

Ra’s face twitches in nervous realization. He runs to attack Ki. Ki yells loud enough for the pillars to crumble around them. Large bricks fall around them, creating a cloud of beige dust. Nicky pulls a strand of his long hair and transforms it into a whip. He strikes Ra with it on the cheek creating a deep gash on the man’sface. It doesn’t heal as fast as before.

“You will be mortal,” Ki says, and he moves to strike again, this time Ra dodges.

“If I die so will you!” Ra growls. “This takes too much power!”

“I’d rather die and take you with me then live another day with you.”

He strikes again and makes a deep gash on Ra’s other cheek. “You will be mortal.” He repeats again and again making Ra lose his focus and attack with no concentration. Ki cracks the whip and swings it hard, it wraps around Ra’s throat. He pulls him forward harshly, Ra falls to his knees. His wounds aren’t healing anymore.

He laughs, blood pours from his mouth and his cheeks, down to his neck. “Congratulations.” He says in a rough voice. “But this isn’t the end for me. I’m too powerful to be killed by the likes of you. And now you’ve weakened yourself. The power you’ve used is too much. Leaving you even more vulnerable than me.”

“You’re the one on your knees, bleeding out.” Ki says.

As swift as a snake, Ra brings up his sword and slices Ki from shoulder to waist. Ki lets go of the whip and stumbles back.

Ra smiles. “I’ll see you again my dear. In a hundred years, a thousand, five, who knows, but I’ll see you again.”

From where he’s at Yusuf sees Ra fall over, his eyes glassy and empty. A wisp of something leaves from his mouth.

The wounded man who had been laying against a pillar crawls over to Ki who’s on the floor bleeding out. They speak, but Yusuf can’t hear them. He watches as Ki, Nicky’s past self, dies.

Yusuf’s heart aches, to see the love of his life die, it’s worse than if death befell upon him instead.

With a gasp Yusuf wakes in the dungeons.

_Did you see_ , a voice in his head says. It sounds suspiciously like Quynh.

_I saw_ , this time it sounds like Booker.

_Now we know what we have to do._

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter might have gone a bit too much into the fantasy realm, but the fact that they're immortal goes into the supernatural/fantasy genre so I hope you don't mind what I've done here.


	19. Chapter 19

  


Booker comes into the room with a tray of food. He sets it down and goes over to nudge Nicky.

Nicky wakes up startled, thinking it’s Ra.

“Hey, it’s just me.” Booker says. “Ra let me bring you some food. He’s hoping I convince you to stop fighting him.” He hands Nicky a plate with a sandwich and chips. “The kitchen isn’t set up yet, this is all I could do.”

“Thank you,” Nicky says and bites into it. It’s not the best thing he’s ever eaten but it tastes amazing to him, since he hasn’t had any food for at least five days.

“You saw the dream, right?” Booker asks.

Nicky nods.

“Quynh is trying to get Ra to let her see Andy. She wants to see if they can come up with a plan.”

Nicky shakes his head. “I died. I made him mortal and I died along with him. I feel so weak. I don’t think I can pull it off again.”

“No, not you. I haven’t discussed it with Quynh, but I could do it. I could try.”

“Booker no. Please, the thought of you dead…”

“I don’t mind death, you know that. It feels right to go out protecting my friends, my family.”

“Booker, there has to be another way.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know if I’m strong enough. But I’ve been practicing on the guards. I’ve been able to bend them to my will.”

“Booker,” Nicky sighs in defeat, sandwich forgotten.

It takes a few days, but finally Ra allows Quynh to see her old friend.

“It should be me.” Andy says as soon as Quynh tells her the plan.

“Andy, you’re mortal now.” Quynh says gently.

“Exactly. I have nothing to lose.”

Quynh speaks very softly, afraid to make Andy feel bad. “Maybe you can’t pull it off. Whatever this power is, maybe it went away with your mortality.”

Andy nods. “Yeah, that would make sense. But if Booker can’t do it-”

“Then I will do it.” Quynh says.

“Quynh, you’ve suffered so much. This isn’t fair to you.”

“I don’t mind death, it’s a cage I mind.” She says somberly. “I’m just sorry I don’t get to spend more time with you and Nile.”

Tears gather in Andy’s eyes. “I wish it were me. There’s so much for Booker to see still, to experience and you deserve so much more.”

“We might find each other again. You’ll be brought back like Nicky and Nile. Booker will be born again. Maybe in the future, we can all be happy together.”

Andy nods. “I’d like that.” 

Quynh lays down next to Andy and the two friends go to sleep together, like they did hundreds of years ago.

Andy opens her eyes. Slowly, she gets up from the bed and walks outside, careful not to make a noise and wake up Quynh.

“Did you get it?”

“Yeah.” Nile hands over the vile. She watches Andy down the concoction. “What are you planning? I saw the dream-”

“We all saw the dream.”

“Andy what are you planning? I don’t want you to lose your new immortality.” Nile says worriedly. “Tell me I didn’t just save you just for you to go sacrifice yourself.”

“You’re too smart for your own good.”

“Andy!”

“Shh, you don’t want to wake up Quynh, she’ll kick my ass if she knows what you know.”

“Quynh? She’s in your room?”

“Yeah. She plans on sacrificing herself, so does Booker. I won’t let them do that. I can’t. They both deserve so much more.”

“What about what you deserve?”

“I’m 6,000 years old Nile. I have lived so many lives and although there wasn’t always happiness, there were times that there was an abundance of it. I’ve had more than my fair share of life. Now it’s your turn, and Quynh’s and Booker’s. She’s a good person, Quynh. She never spoke of you to me. But I knew she had lost someone important to her. Someone she loved with all her heart. I know what she did was inexcusable but try to understand what it was like for her. Be her under the ocean, in that sarcophagus, screaming for help. Be her for a minute and you’ll see how anyone can be driven to madness. And take care of Booker for me, show him what life can be like.”

Nile throws her arms around Andy and holds on to her for a long time.

  



	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tag: Major Character Death
> 
> A/N: This is it guys, the big fight. I'm kinda nervous about this chapter, hopefully you like it.

  


Nicky puts on the clothes laid out for him. It’s a pair of white pants and a white shirt that feel soft against this skin. He ignores the extravagant jewelry and puts on his shoes. He takes a deep breath and walks out of the room he’s been confined in for over two weeks.

The guards follow him as he walks over to the newly set up dinning room, where Ra said to meet him.

Ra’s there along with Quynh. Nicky sits down across from Quynh, next to Ra as he’s ordered.

“You look beautiful,” Ra says. “But imprisonment doesn’t suit you, you’ve lost weight and you’re too pale. Are you ready to be a good boy now? To obey me and stop questioning and fighting me.”

Nicky swallows the lump on his throat and nods.

Ra smiles. “Good.” He kisses Nicky’s hand. “Now we can discuss our rule of the world. The president of Egypt has been persuaded to hand over power to me.”

“Persuaded?” Nicky asks.

“Yes, dear, persuaded. Russia, and China have allied themselves against the UK and US. Soon there will be war and when all four world powers have crippled each other, Egypt and its allies will come in and take over everything. And then all of us here, will reveal ourselves to the world and they will know gods walk among them. And the whole world will be our kingdom.”

“And the people your slaves.”

Ra turns his eyes to Nicky. “Don’t start. You don’t want to make me angry again. You promised you’d behave.”

Nicky looks at the knife right by Ra’s hand. “I’ll behave.”

“Good.” He turns to a servant. “Bring the rest here. I want to celebrate with all of them. And I want them to see that you’ve joined me of your own free will.” He says to Nicky.

After a few minutes, Andy and Booker walk in and take their seat.

“Where’s Nile?”

“She wasn’t in her rooms, master.”

“Find the girl, bring her here.”

“Yes, master.”

Another servant pours them wine. “I know we didn’t get off on the right foot. But I’m glad you’ve all come around to see things my way. Today we celebrate the beginning of the end of human rule. Soon all will know our faces and statues will be erected in our honor. And a new rule will begin.” He raises his glass and all around him do the same. “To the future.” He drinks from fine glass.

Three things happen instantaneously. Quynh grabs the Ra’s long knife and slices his throat with it. Andy grabs her concealed knife slices Booker’s throat and throws the knife at Quynh, impaling her on her throat. “Don’t get involved,” she says to a shocked Nicky.

She gets up from her seat and walks over to a recovering Ra. She grabs the knife Quynh used and stabs Ra over and over on his face. “Motherfucker, you will be mortal, you _will_ be mortal.” She says over and over again as she keeps stabbing him. Blood splatters all over her, all over the table, and it even splatters on Nicky. Slowly Quynh and Booker recover only to see Ra throw Andy halfway across the room.

“You think I’m stupid!” Ra roars with a bloody face. “You think I’d keep you around if you were powerful enough to kill me!?” He laughs. “No one can kill me. Least of all you a mortal.”

“I’m not a mortal,” Andy reveals.

“And she’s not alone,” Quynh says. “Maybe individually we can’t kill you, but together we can. I take from you your immortality,” she begins.

“Your immortality is no more,” Booker joins.

In a desperate act Ra grabs Nicky and holds a knife against his throat. “Say one more word and I’ll do to him what you’re doing to me and I don’t need help to succeed.”

“Nicky!” At the entrance Joe appear with Nile at his side.

“Do it!” Nicky says. “Kill him.”

“Utter one more word and he dies. Is that what you want?” He turns to Joe. “For him to die in your arms again?”

“Don’t you fucking dare!”

Nicky looks at his friends, his family. They wont do it. They wont risk his life to save themselves from Ra.

“Guards!” No less than twenty men with guns rush in. “Unarm them and take them to the dungeons.”

“No,” Booker says, his voice reverberating. “He’s the enemy, point your guns at him.” Without blinking the guards obey Booker and point their guns at Ra, ready to shoot when given the command.

Nicky feels the sharp knife against his throat. He swallows, gathers his courage, and elbows Ra on the kidneys. Ra doubles over in pain, the knife slides and cuts Nicky, but the cut is shallow and heals quick enough.

“Shoot them!” Ra commands.

The guards turn and shoot the immortals.

The room erupts into complete chaos as Andy and her team fight off the armed guards. Nicky chases after Ra. He tackles the man to the floor.

“I take your immortality.” Nicky says. “Your immortality is no more.”

Joe, having followed after Nicky, repeats the words Nicky said. “I take your immortality.”

“Aaahhh,” Ra roars and throws Nicky at Joe to stop them both from speaking. “I take your immortalities and your power and make it mine.” He counters.

Joe draws his gun, given to him by Nile, and fires every bullet onto Ra’s face.

“I take your immortality and your power. I take your immortality and your power.” Nicky and Joe say in unison.

Soon enough the rest join them, and they repeat what they say. “Stop!!! I’ll tell you everything. I’ll tell you where we come from! I’ll tell you our purpose. I’ll tell you why your immortal, why you have all this power.”

The room grows silent and the immortals look at one another. Nile steps forward.

“We know why we’re immortal. We know what our purpose is. It’s to help people, to help humanity. Not to do what you’re doing.”

Again, they start their chanting. But Ra is powerful, more powerful than he was in Egypt all those thousands of years ago. To unmake immortality is a dangerous thing, it had cost Ki his life long ago. They start feeling the weight of what they’re trying to do. Nile doubles over in pain, then Booker has trouble saying the words, he can barely stutter them out. Andy can see the beads of sweat on Quynh, Joe and Nickyu’s foreheads.

“Stop,” she says. “I’ll do the deed. Only me.”

“Andy,” Quynh walks toward her. “This will mean your life.”

Andy nods. “I know. I’m ready for it. Maybe when I see you again, Lykon will be there to welcome me.”

With eyes full of sadness, Quynh nods. She understands perfectly well.

Andy walks over to Booker. “Live the best life you can. Live everyday with joy.” She kisses his forehead. Then she walks over to stand before Ra.

“You’ll regret this. All the knowledge I possess, it will be lost forever.”

“Like the kid said, we know who we are. It’s you who’s lost his way.” She looks behind her, at her people one more time and then back to Ra. “I take your immortality away from you, your power is no more. I take your immortality away from you, your power is no more.” Ra lets out a scream of pain as he feels his power leave him. Andy grabs her knife and slashes his throat. His red blood splatters on the floor. Ra falls over and dies with a silent gasp.

Andy drops the knife. Before her eyes, her hands wrinkle. They get liver and spots. She can feel her strength leaving her. She falls, Nicky catches her before she hits the floor.

“My family,” she says. “Take care of each other. I’ll see you again, I know I will.”

Andromache of Scythia passes away, happy to have helped humanity and saved her family.

  



	21. Epilogue

  


“The governments have stopped fighting each other. Egypt has its previous president back. Alex has been arrested, and Ra’s body has been burnt to ashes.” Copley says over the video call. “And I seem to be under no one’s influence anymore. Please, if I start acting strange, don’t listen to my advised anymore.”

“Don’t worry Ra’s dead. He can’t do anything anymore. And we don’t do that. It’s too strange to control other people, too inhuman.” Joe explains.

“Well, enjoy your vacation. You wont hear from me for a month I promise.”

“Thank you, Copley.” Joe ends the video call.

He looks out the window, in the direction of green rolling hills and a few tall trees.

He leaves the cottage and walks five minutes to reach a large stone angel with large feathered wings. Nicky is there, along with a fresh bundle of lilies placed at the feet of the angel.

“I miss her,” Nicky says.

“So do I. But I think she was ready. She died happy. And now she gets to rest for a while.”

Nicky turns to him. “Yes, you are right.” He gets closer to Yusuf. “You know it was always you, even back then in my first life. It was always you I loved and keep on loving.”

Joe tilts his head. “What are you talking about?”

Nicky smiles. “You’ll see tonight. I’ll take you to the past, where you and I met.” He leans in and they share a passionate kiss.

They’re in a park, full of families looking after their children. Two figures walk side by side.

Although Quynh’s happy to be next to Nile, she can’t help but feel awkward. “I’m sorry,” she says after a while of silence. “I’m sorry for the unhappiness I caused you, for the pain,” she says sincerely.

Nile turns to look at her. “Andy says, said, you’re a good person. That you did a lot of good. She said I should try to understand you a bit more. I do understand why you did what you did. But I don’t agree with it. And I know you have all these great memories of us in the past but all I have of you are horrible memories.”

Quynh swallows the lump in her throat and nods. “I understand,” she says. “I love you,” she says because she can’t help herself. “I wasn’t always a good person, but my love for you and your eternal kindness made me change. I’ll leave, I’ll show you that I’m good and maybe one day you’ll see me differently and give me a chance.”

Nile shakes her head and Quynh’s heart thunders in panic. “No, don’t leave. It’s like Nicky said, we’re meant to be together, it’s destiny. I just… Can we just be friends? Is that possible? I would like to get to know you, and I would like for you to know me, this version of me, before considering anything else.”

Quynh smiles through tears of happiness. “It would be my honor to get to know you, Nile Freeman.”

Miles away in the city, Booker gets off his motorcycle and stands in front of a building. He takes off his helmet, which Nile insisted he wear, and walks in.

Inside there’s a group made up of middle-aged men and women. Booker takes a deep breath and walks in. He takes a seat in the circle.

“Welcome everyone,” A kindly looking older man with a trimmed beard says. “Today we have a new member. Please introduce yourself and tell us why you’re here.”

Booker looks at the people around him. All of them have the same haunted expression he sees everyday in the mirror. “My name is Sebastian Booker. And like everyone here, I lost family. I lost my three sons and,” he takes a deep breath, “and I’m not dealing with it very well.” Everyone around him nods in understanding and for the first time Booker feels hope that things can get better for him.

Booker gets back to the cottage just as the sun starts to set.

“Hey, it smells delicious in here!”

“Nicky’s cooking his famous bolognaise pasta, that Joe says it’s to die for.” Nile informs him as she sets up the table with help from Quynh.

“It is to die for.” Nicky says with a smile. “Go wash your hands Booker, it’s almost ready.”

They sit around the small table with mismatching chairs, rubbing elbows with one another.

Joe raises his cup of sparkling grape juice. “To Andy, wherever she is, I’m sure she’s happy that we’re all here together.”

“To Andy,” they all repeat.

They dig into their food, giving complements to the chef.

Nile says she’s going to have to watch her waistline if this is how Nicky cooks all the time.

Joe laughs and says she’s welcome to join him in his morning run.

Quynh assured them that it wont always be Nicolo doing the cooking and to expect to see vegetables in their next meal.

All around there’s laughter and lightness in their hearts and five immortals are content to have endured so much to be sitting together now and for a long time to come

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that ladies and gentlemen is the end. I really hope it’s to your satisfaction. When I started this fic, I honestly didn’t expect it to get as long as it did. In reality I wanted it to be much shorter. But I’m very proud of this fic and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. A multitude of thanks to everyone who clicked on this fic and left kudos and/or comments, they feeds the soul. Hugs and kisses and best wishes to everyone! 
> 
> If you have any questions or doubts, leave it in the comments and I'll respond. I know some things in the fic are vague, which was done on purpose because immortality and living thousands of years is a hell of a thing, and if you want me to elaborate on certain things I can. 
> 
> Alright bye bye everyone ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥


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